Zenith
by PhaerynTao
Summary: Jake has some wisdom to share. Rated for mild language.


I had some very mixed feelings about Avatar the first time I saw it. The sentiments displayed in the visuals and the philosophy the Na'Vi had about nature and the exchangeable energies is a spiritual value I've always held very close to my heart, but I felt it was dampened by what I thought was a very cliché plot. I'm usually the kind of person who either thinks its great or it sucks, so this movie made me very confused emotionally. However, I saw it again, and I greatly appreciate it for the originality it did have. And therefor I present something I feel needed to be explored.

Avatar belongs to James Cameron (aka self proclaimed King of the World...sigh).

~o~

Dusk had a thick cohesive smell. When the sun was high the air evaporated quickly, rising to the top of the canopy and leaving a fresh zealous glow in its wake. All creatures besides the ones who exclusively dwelled within the shadows of the night united in a single habitual closing of their eyes, the shutting off of their brains, a time for peace and quiet and rest. A time to rest with their families. But the air is so much thicker in the night, Jake noticed, his long dexterous arms folded behind his head, azure tail flicking back and forth beside him in impatience. He was restless, uneasy, and for the life of him he could not drift out of consciousness long enough to truly rest the troubles out of his system. Perhaps there was still an incognizant fear that if he were to fall asleep, he would wake up with a body that could not walk coursing alongside the warm blood in his veins. Despite the heat of the jungle enveloping the People in a stifling and loving embrace of life and virility, he felt cold and incomplete. Neytiri had not come to lay next to him so that they would rest together, and the hours ticked away like one grain of sand at a time in an hourglass; so slow, so unyielding and stubborn, and he despised it. Each moment away from her was like unbearable sludge weighing heavily on his mind. The sounds of the village had calmed down considerably as the last of them laid their weary heads down for a good night's rest. Sighing in malcontent, Jake rose, crept out of his sleeping place carefully and not making any noise as he followed her scent, the subtle and individualistic rustle of her hair, the aural imprint she left behind on each tree she walked by. It took much a long time to attain these abilities, attributes he once thought were full of garbage and reformist dribble, but it was so real now that he hardly remembered a time when he wasn't able to feel the world around him for truly what it was.

There was no rush in his steps, no haste, no urgency that would unsettle the semi dormant state of the jungle, but with each movement of his legs Jake recounted the last five months of his life. They had relocated, somewhere close to the Tree of Souls but not directly upon the sacred sentient burial of their ancestors. One would think that their morale would have returned once the war was won, once he was without a crippled body, once the humans were, for now, off their land and light years away from their feral tropical paradise filled with mystery and barbarism and things that his native species were far too closed minded to understand. But they were still rebuilding. Little ones still trembled as gas particles crystallized themselves permanently in their lungs, and scars from splintered wood and poorly aimed gunshots could be seen adorning each tribe member's body. Some wore them with honor and pride, others were ashamed of them, but most looked upon them with detestation, for it reminded them of their hatred, their prejudice, placed inside their hearts for a good reason but could not hold off the poisonous rampaging intent that bitterness supplies. They all respected him deeply, but as a dreamwalker, he would always have blood within him that was part of the sky people, the exterminators who nearly brought the People down in in a cloud of fire and wretched taint of blood. As Neytiri's mate he had become the patriarch of the clan, but the rank felt inappropriate, for deep down he thought someone like him with stained heritage and once a betrayer of their trust was not deserving of it. Tradition played a heavy part in their culture, but Neytiri was, as well as her mother, a strange and profoundly rooted woman with the ways of truth and sentience, deep down an accepting person when it came to the concept of change. Neytiri remained the spiritual leader, while he enacted his duties of peacekeeping as best he could. On earth there was always the perpetuating stereotype that people in the marines were bloodthirsty and indifferent to murder if it was asked of them, but whether or not that was true with him, he was no longer that way and reveled in a life of strong togetherness. He could only imagine what that looked like in the eyes of his past superiors, weakness drenched in pussified leeching, probably. But his soul was strong this way, and he drank life from a goblet like an elixir.

The spirits were strong with her, seethed under her skin as she passionately lived out her life in each way she could, by her own terms. But as Jake came across her, standing motionlessly on a hill looking through a soft separation of thick luscious timber over a steep drop off into a sea of green, her body radiated a sadness that she could not hide even if she wanted to. Her ears were twitching gracefully; she could hear him long before he had arrived, but she did not turn to greet him. Jake came to her side, touching her shoulder gently and feeling the warmth of her skin against his rough palm. He pulled her slightly so that she faced him, and he was inwardly startled by what he saw. Neytiri's eyes were swimming in pain, a pain so deep he was almost frightened to explore it, to engage it. But his mind often clouded the truer judgment of his heart, which, as she had said the the day he met her what seemed so long ago, was strong. Fearless.

Releasing her shoulder abruptly, Jake lowered his head in subdued respect, never breaking eye contact with the sad buttercup yellow stones that peered back at him, beautiful and luminescent in the dimness. Voicelessly he greeted with his hand from his forehead in her direction, movements low, quiet, as if he were trying to be careful not to startle her. The look of vulnerability was universal, and he'd be damned if he made it worse for her, whatever it was that was bothering her. Whatever it was, it was serious, and anything she took serious, he did as well.

"Why haven't you come to bed?"

Neytiri smiled at him, albeit lamentably, and grabbed a long moss covered vine to her side, leaning her cheek on the back of her hand. "I could not sleep. I can come back and sing you a lullaby if you wish."

Jake shook his head. "Even in the dark I can tell you're sad. What's the matter?"

She was quiet for a long time. Her eyes became half lidded, and the smell of salt filled his keen nostrils as the dam threatened to break. "It's wonderful, you know. how you helped us rebuild." Her tone sounded so morose, it didn't seem like it was gratification she was trying to convey. Jake watched her carefully, watched as her chest convulsed gently as she imprisoned sobs in her throat, watched as her face screwed up in the mild but agonizing expression of sorrow, watched as she shook her head repeatedly.

"I cannot sleep...because I am haunted, Jake." Neytiri said, trembles breaking apart her words in tiny fissures of broken happiness. "You would not understand such weakness, you are a warrior."

"Neytiri, you are anything but weak, and I will try to understand if you just tell me. Please, teach me like the baby I once was."

"While you were in the skies battling the metal war birds, I was on the ground, gasping and striving for fresh air next to my dead Ikran, watching as my brothers and sisters fell to the ground, dead with tiny silver stones embedded in their hearts."

She said it with such grief lacing her tenors, the vibrations of her womanly sonorous voice quivering with a hated heartache.

"It is probably something you find stupid. You were a warrior before you even came here. " said Neytiri, tilting her head and bowing it out of shame. "...I had never been in a war before. And though I am grateful that my people have spilled their blood for us to live, it saddens me, haunts me."

"And you're ashamed of this?" Jake asked in quiet disbelief. "Neytiri...war is an ugly thing. You have no reason to feel this way."

Suddenly she narrowed her eyes. "Then I am angry at the ones who stole their lives."

Another pregnant pause, before Jake said, "As well you should be."

She shook her head adamantly. "No, I am beyond angry. It has been nearly six revolutions and I can still feel the poison inside of me. I want their blood on my hands, just as my people's blood is on theirs."

Gritting her teeth and spreading her full lips into a distorted pained grimace, she snarled a savage whisper between her incisors. "I _hate _humans, Jake. I _hate _them, and I wish they would pay."

The leaves and ferns rustled to match her swift motion as she turned to face him head on, face screwed up in anger and hurt, pain and a desperate need for refuge of some sort. The war had torn her apart, and Jake felt like an idiot for only now being able to see it.

"Do you _remember _my father? Do you _remember _the piece of wood in his chest drenched in his _blood_? I smelled his blood Jake, I smelled it and my tears mixed with it, making it _pink!_"

She was starting to cry now, and she dipped her head, ashamed of her anger, ashamed of feeling disaffected by the good fortune following the battle, ashamed of not counting the blessings as a tsahik should.

"And you...you betrayed us. Hid yourself like a spying serpent and used us..."

Jake said nothing to refute this. Though he redeemed himself, helped the clans rise up and save themselves from certain death, by telling the initial truth of his presence there among them he had mangled his love from the inside out, creating a wound with no blood or bruising, but one that hurt just as much. Happy endings were never possible through and through in the blink of an eye, even he could still retain that despite his transformation.

She began to fall, weak from her breakdown, only to have her mate catch her by the torso so that she leaned against him, chin on his shoulder and tears falling freely, hotly onto his skin.

"And what if they return..." Came an anguished whisper. "They'll come back and take more, and more..."

"Neytiri." Jake said abruptly, firmly. "They cant take anything else from us. I wont let them."

She gripped his biceps and dejectedly pushed herself away from him, kneeling against the soft glow of the mossy ground. "You don't understand...they are bad. Every single last one of them. You are Omaticaya now; but they, they stay, not even courtesy of dreamwalkers."

Jake reached out and rested his palm against her cheek, fingers tangling themselves in her braids that were beginning to matte from lack of care. She let him touch her, but she seemed unaffected.

"Your pain is mine." He said soothingly, gracefully fading out of English and adopting a Na'Vi tongue. His words always seemed so much more esoteric when he spoke to her in her native language, and he was able to express things that wouldn't make sense in English. "Your pain is mine, and so is your hatred. But the wielder of a blade does not always thirst for blood."

She glanced at him, eyes narrowed in doubt and curiosity alike. "What do you mean?"

"Can I tell you a story?" He asked. She nodded slowly.

He began, this time in English once more, because it was a long drawn out scene he had always imagined himself retelling to his children and grandchildren back on Earth, with a disgruntled wife in the kitchen silently wishing he wouldn't haunt their offspring with tales of violence and murder. Neytiri was already heckled by ghosts she could not ignore or quench. She needed to hear this, something to calm her fury, or else she would continue to deteriorate as the days wore on, her inability to deal with the loss eating her up inside.

"Venezuela's very green. Not like it is here, but...very green. Lush, I guess. I served there, it was getting heavy. Many times I had to hide in the crannies of the woods surrounded by my comrade's severed limbs. There was so much gun powder and blood in the air I could hardly think straight. I killed and I ran, killed and ran, and then...I just hid. I didn't know what else to do. I was numb all over. I had trained for it, but training, no matter how harsh, can never prepare you for the real thing."

Neytiri was finally coming out of her blank distress, staring at him with reverence and fear, sympathy shining in her bright xanthous eyes.

"I made the wrong move, and came out from under my cover. I should have just waited until the gunfire in my region died down, but I was never one to stick around in the same place for long, so...I stood up and ran. I got shot all over almost immediately, and I fell to the ground. Everything hurt, and I vomited all over myself. I couldn't even crawl to safety. It was rather pathetic, actually."

She shook her head at his latter statement, but he didn't stop for long. "Someone grabbed me by the arms and hoisted me over their shoulder. My senses were really screwed over, but I could hear him speaking Spanish under his breath, the language of our enemies, and he had a Venezuelan uniform, because y'know, their colors are different. I would've fought him, but I literally couldn't move an inch. I must have been moaning like a rabid animal though, because he reached up and hit me in the face to get me to shut up. He had...really dark skin, and a smooth voice despite all of the chaos. I was afraid he would take me prisoner. I said 'put me down, you fucker', but he didn't say anything."

She was quite close now, sitting with her slenderized hip touching his own along with their shoulders. But the smoothness of her skin did nothing to break him out of his reverie, of which was made of strict imagery and bombshell recollections. He was stuck until the memory was finished, and only then could he return to the present.

"This guy suddenly hoisted me down next to a bush. I thought now was when he was going to shoot me maybe, but he didn't. Covered me with a bunch of sticks and leaves. I was losing blood and fading in and out of coherence, but I paid close attention to what he was doing. He looked down at me like he hated me, but there was pity in his eyes. He said something in Spanish again, something clear and obviously directed at me. And I thought this is the end. He's going to take that AK and let me have it. He gripped it like he was going to shoot me, but then, he just left. Literally left me in the bushes, camouflaged and hidden from sight."

"Why?" She asked, brow furrowed in a subtle and curious astonishment.

Jake shrugged, and stared ahead. "The remaining members of my battalion found me, brought me back to the base hospital. I woke up to a bunch of hazy white suits and a pair of useless legs."

"So he saved you." She offered, two of her four slender fingers curling themselves around her chin as she listened interested, inquisitively, trying to figure out his sentiment before he finished. Jake knew she wouldn't, for being blinded by betrayal and the dull ache of suffering, but she was a sensitive and emotional creature. She would understand when he made his point.

"To this day I don't like admitting it, but...yeah, I guess he did. I have a sneaking suspicion that he was the one who shot me in the first place. Either way, he took me out of the warfare, put me in a peaceful place, and spared my life."

He turned to her, a masculine intensity ablaze in his stare. "Understand this; the enemy, _my _enemy, had saved me."

Neytiri blinked slowly, subdued by his lecture, evidently unused to the switch of tones between a student and teacher, but too engrossed in his words to care.

"In that battle I learned that nothing is written in stone, even though I didn't make the connection for years. Black and white are nothing but colors; they don't apply to the complexity of reality."

Reaching over, his arm tenderly embracing her close to his body, he reached under her chin and made her look at him. "Don't let your hatred poison you. There are no absolutes."

"I cannot think that way..." Neytiri said somberly. "It is too difficult for me right now."

"You have to try. Remember that nothing is simply right or wrong, and no one is solely your enemy."

Jake took her hand and gently placed it across the muscular plane of his dark cerulean chest. "You say you hate humans, but that's a half human heart in there. Proof that an enemy can become a friend."

She glanced up at him in slight surprise, as if it was so easy to forget that the blood of the sky people ran through his veins. Her hand pulsed delicately, trying to send pure energy through the web of her sorrows and out the coarse pads of her fingers.

"People like me, Norm..." He paused, bringing forth the name delicately to not stir up any more painful feelings. "...and Grace. We all saw that what our people were doing was wrong, and we fought for what we believed was right."

He sighed quietly. "Them more so than me, I think. That half assed explanation I gave you so long ago was...so shitty. I'm still guilty for what happened, and I'll wear the responsibility until the day I die, if you want."

He couldn't see her face now. It was now nestled sideways against the hard breastplate of his sternum, opaque braids obscuring her expression. Lightly, she shook her head, smearing silent tears into his skin.

"I don't want you to do that, Jake."

"Then what do you want me to do?" He said lowly, a loverly desperation deep in his tenors. "I'd do anything for you. Just name it."

Her arms had snaked their way around his waist, fingers pressing into the dip of his back, and she silently wept for her losses, for Jake's words. As she laid there upon the folded limbs of his lap, he felt the energies within her body shift and writhe uncontrollably, split into halves of gratitude and the noxious games of bitterness. Her lips moved against him, muted and incoherent.

"What?" Jake asked, placing a hand affectionately on the back of her head, softly kneading and massaging the flesh there.

Neytiri lifted her head, lips, cheeks, and eyes contorted in despair. "I said...promise me something."

"Anything."

"Don't betray me like that ever again. No secrets." Unhooking her hand from his waist and laying it protectively over her chest, she said mournfully, "I don't think I could take another blow like that from you. It hurt more than if you took your knife and plunged it into my heart."

"I promise." He said without skipping a beat. And he meant it.

"Does this make me weak, Jake?"

"Not a chance. You're the strongest person I've ever had the pleasure to know. It's a blessing in disguise in a way; all this means is that you have a soul. You'll get through this. And I can help you. Eywa and I can help you."

Neytiri nodded gently, not her crying didn't cease. . The sobs were swelling up in her chest like an engorged insect bite, but she did not release them, and Jake didn't want to force her. The fluorescent beauty in the sky like an ever present God revolved in a slow and hypnotic dance before their eyes, but their thoughts only focused an iota on such brilliant allure. They both pondered on the promise made, and slowly pushed away the notion of it ever being broken. Until his love was strong enough to convince her his allegiance as both a follower and a mate for life, he would have to be her pillar, a guiding force in her life as she once, and still was for him. He loved her. Adored her. Respected her. Learned from her the ways that made his life truly worth living. Touched by their inner vigor, the flora beneath them pulsed with a soft intensity, vivid bounty from which seeds were sewn and fruit was bared in all forms. By the time her body was no longer wrought with the tension, his torso had a thin film of wetness from her tears, and she seemed...subdued, relaxed.

"We should go back..." Jake said quietly, trailing off.

"Perhaps." Was her cryptic reply, although everything in her body language told him that the last thing she wanted to do was move.

And so he said nothing more on the matter, just sat and held her, eyes glazing over from the hushed tranquility of a jungle that ached for their everlasting unity.


End file.
